ief from his presence.
If anyone had come to him a week ago and had said, "Druce Spurling
will be here this day or next," his joy would have surpassed all
bounds. Now he realised that there is a worse evil than solitude--the
compulsory companionship of a man who once was, and is no longer, your
friend. "Ach!" he muttered shivering, "I feel as if I had been sitting
with my feet in an open grave." Then remorsefully he added, "The poor
chap's in trouble. He was good to me in days gone by: I'll do my best
to help him. Perhaps that's the kind of offal that I appeared to
Robert Pilgrim when I made my journey to God's Voice last January, and
he threatened to shoot me; yet, God forbid that I ever looked like
that. Maybe that which I seem to see in Spurling is only the reflected
change in myself. Christ pity us lonely men!"

From the window he could see how Spurling was gathering his dogs
around him, leading them past the Point northward to a bend where they
could not be seen by a man approaching from up-river. What was the
meaning of such precaution? Why had he been so urgently requested to
help the one man in the world whom he was most likely to help without
urging, since he had been his closest friend? Why had he been ordered
to destroy the note immediately when read? And why had Spurling, whom
he had thought to be in Klondike making his pile, or having taken
advantage of the secret knowledge which he had unwisely shared with
him, to be in Guiana, sailing up the Great Amana seeking El Dorado,
travelled these thousands of miles by sea and land only to visit him
here in Keewatin thus surlily? Was it to hide? Well, if that was his
purpose, there wasn't much chance of his being followed, or if
followed, found.

CHAPTER III

THE DEVIL IN THE KLONDIKE

Spurling, having returned from feeding his dogs, had reseated himself
by the window, but he had not again spoken. When Granger had informed
him that a meal was ready, and had called to him to come and partake,
he had only shaken his head. When, however, it had been brought to
him, he had eaten hungrily, bolting his food like a famished husky,
yet never looking at what he ate, for his eyes were directed along the
river-bed. He used neither fork nor spoon, carrying whatever was set
before him hastily to his mouth in his hands. His whole attitude was
one of hurry; he rested in haste, as if begrudging the moments which
were lost from travel.

Had he been the foremost runne